Wayne LaPierre

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NRA Meeting Rumors

October 9, 2020 by 4 Comments

The NRA Meeting of Members is scheduled for 9am on October 24th in Tucson, Arizona. As noted before, it will be at the Loews Ventana Canyon Resort. Due to COVID-19 restrictions in Arizona, you will need a ticket to be admitted to the meeting. Unfortunately, the meeting is at capacity according to a notice on the ticket website.

That said, even if you don’t have a ticket to attend the actual Meeting of Members, you can still come to the resort, have your voting eligibility confirmed, and vote for the 76th Director.

From the ticket website:

The Voter Verification room will be located in the Ventana Room at the Hotel and will be open Friday October 23, 9am – 8pm, and Saturday October 24 from 8am until the conclusion of the Annual Meeting of Members. All voting booths for the 76th Director will be located in the Voter Verification room.

If you are in the area and eligible to vote, take some time and vote.

As of now, petition candidate Frank Tait is the only declared candidate for the 76th Director. I both gathered signatures for his petition and endorsed him in his run for the Board. I continue to support Frank. He is both a training counselor and an experienced businessman. He would bring a lot to the Board.

Here is where the rumors come in. Anyone of the people who ran for the Board of Directors and failed to be elected is eligible to run for the 76th Director. Thus, Rocky Marshall, Robert Wos, John Cushman, Jim Wallace, Craig Schwartz, Kevin Hogan, and Frank Tait are eligible to run. Rumor has it that the powers that be are seeking anyone other than Frank Tait to be the “endorsed candidate”.

As a reminder, Wayne LaPierre used your membership money in the past to pay for people to campaign for the “endorsed” candidate. Listen again to Dezarae Payne and Michael Schwartz describe how Paul Payne carried out Wayne’s wishes.

It takes nerve, chutzpah, arrogance, and outright disdain for the NRA members to continue in a strategy that has been both exposed and is downright dishonest.

Worse than that, it is stupid.

New York Attorney General Letitia James and her staff have made it plain that they are trying to dissolve the NRA. Stunts like this only play into her hands. If Wayne and his henchmen don’t think they are watching, they are bigger fools than I thought they were.

With no offense meant to any of the directors or candidates, the plain truth of the matter is one director on the bloated 76 member Board of Directors cannot do much. This makes it all the more stupid.

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Wayne LaPierre And The IRS

October 5, 2020 by

I wouldn’t want to be Wayne LaPierre right now. Not only is he named as a defendant in the New York Attorney General’s complaint against the NRA but now word has leaked that he is under investigation for tax fraud by the Internal Revenue Service. This comes from a story in the Wall Street Journal that was posted just earlier this afternoon.

You may remember that Letitia James said in her news conference in August that she was referring matters to the IRS. At that time, she claimed that LaPierre had received personal benefits that should have been reported by the NRA to the IRS on his Form W-2. If the Wall Street Journal’s sources are correct, she kept her word.

From Mark Maremont’s report:

The Internal Revenue Service is investigating longtime National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre for possible criminal tax fraud related to his personal taxes, according to people familiar with the matter.

Mr. LaPierre was paid $2.2 million by the NRA in 2018, the most recent year available, the nonprofit group’s public filings show. His total reported pay from 2014 to 2018 was $11.2 million.

The story has the obligatory comment from William Brewer III. However, it is interesting to note he is representing the NRA and not LaPierre.

An attorney for Mr. LaPierre had no immediate comment.

“The NRA is not aware of any IRS inquiry but, of course, will fully cooperate with any appropriate requests for assistance,” said William A. Brewer III, an outside attorney for the NRA, who noted that the group’s tax filings are audited.

The story concludes with the note that this usually is a civil matter with some exceptions.

If the IRS believes a taxpayer has underreported income, the agency often pursues the matter through a civil audit, claiming the taxpayer owes back taxes and penalties. To show criminal behavior, tax specialists said, the IRS would have to demonstrate that a taxpayer willfully underreported income, typically over multiple years.

It couldn’t be determined how far along the investigation is, and such probes can end with no charges filed.

I wonder if any mention of this will be made at the Meeting on Members in Tucson on October 24th. For some reason, I doubt any official comments will be made but I’m sure it will be one of the many topics of gossip in the hallways.

While I am in no way making any side by side comparisons, I will note that running afoul of the IRS is what put Al Capone in the slammer.

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Court Rules Donors’ Fraud Suit Against NRA Has Standing

October 1, 2020 by 2 Comments

Judge William Campbell, Jr. of the US District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee ruled yesterday that David Dell’Aquila’s class action suit against the NRA has standing to proceed. The NRA, the NRA Foundation, and Wayne LaPierre had argued that the lawsuit failed to meeting the requirements of Rule 9b of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Rule 9(b) states: In alleging fraud or mistake, a party must state with particularity the circumstances constituting fraud or mistake. Malice, intent, knowledge, and other conditions of a person’s mind may be alleged generally.

In his ruling yesterday, Judge Campbell found that this standard had not been met with regard to both the NRA Foundation and Wayne LaPierre. However, it had been met with regard to the NRA itself.

David Dell’Aquila and the other plaintiffs had alleged that monies that they had donated to advance the mission of the NRA had been used for, among other things, to buy suits for Wayne LaPierre, to pay for private travel for LaPierre and his family, to pay for a luxury apartment for intern Megan Allen, and to pay for makeup and hairstyling for Susan LaPierre.

Judge Campbell wrote, with regard to the NRA,

The NRA next argues that Plaintiffs did not allege “in more than a passing conclusory assertion that the NRA knew of and intended the falsity of its statements.” (Id. at 12). The NRA argues that because the statements regarding the use of funds relate to the promise of some future action, Plaintiffs must allege that the NRA had no present intent to carry out the promise. The NRA further argues that Plaintiffs cannot plead the element of intent for “any future expenditures that were not in contemplation at the time of the Solicitation.” In other words, the NRA argues that if, at the time of the solicitation, it did not specifically plan to spend money on, for example personal expenses of Wayne LaPierre, there can be no plausible allegation of intent with regard to that expenditure.


The Court declines to read the intent requirement so narrowly. First, Plaintiffs allege that the funds were spent on things that were not in furtherance of the mission of the NRA. It was not necessary that the NRA know at the time what the extraneous expenditures would be, only that they knew that money would be spent outside the mission.Moreover, Rule 9(b) allows the element of intent to be alleged generally. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 9(b). Given the extent of the alleged misspent funds – in both duration and volume – the Court finds Plaintiffs’ allegation that the NRA knew donated funds would not be used to advance the mission of the NRA sufficiently plausible to state a claim.

He goes on to say:

At this juncture in the litigation, making all inferences in the light most favorable to the Plaintiffs, the Court finds Plaintiffs have sufficiently alleged a claim for fraud against the NRA. Although the Court will not engage in a statement by statement review of the allegations, it bears noting that many of the statements cited by Plaintiffs do not make any representations regarding the use of donor funds. However, because some of them do, and Plaintiffs have alleged the remaining elements of the claim, the Court will deny the NRA’s motion to dismiss the claim for fraud.

Judge Campbell goes on to dismiss the RICO claims against the NRA noting that it cannot be both an enterprise and a person for purposes of the RICO statute. He also dismissed the RICO claims against the NRA Foundation and LaPierre as the plaintiffs didn’t adequately argue claims of fraud against them.

The bottom line is that the Foundation and LaPierre are both off the hook and the lawsuit against the NRA itself has enough standing to proceed. In retrospect, I’m sure the NRA will eventually find that it would have been cheaper to give the plaintiffs their money back with a non-disclosure settlement than to keep using the services of William Brewer. Indeed, Brewer’s fees were part of the argument that donor money had been misused.

One last note – to anyone thinking that this is a Democrat-appointed judge coming down on the NRA, think again. Judge Campbell was appointed by President Trump in 2018.

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This Was Supposed To Be The Big Day for Josh Powell

September 8, 2020 by

If you had been paying any sort of attention to the mainstream media, you might know that today was the day that Josh Powell’s tell-all book was to be released. The book entitled, Inside the NRA: A Tell-All Account of Corruption, Greed, and Paranoia within the Most Powerful Political Group in America, is supposed to tell us the inside scoop about Wayne and company.

Amazon is running this as the blurb for the book:

A shocking exposé of rampant, decades-long incompetence at the National Rifle Association, as told by a former member of its senior leadership.

Joshua L. Powell is the NRA–a lifelong gun advocate, in 2016, he began his new role as a senior strategist and chief of staff to NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre.

What Powell uncovered was horrifying: “the waste and dysfunction at the NRA was staggering.”

INSIDE THE NRA reveals for the first time the rise and fall of the most powerful political organization in America–how the NRA became feared as the Death Star of Washington lobbies and so militant and extreme as “to create and fuel the toxicity of the gun debate until it became outright explosive.”

INSIDE THE NRA explains this intentional toxic messaging was wholly the product of LaPierre’s leadership and the extremist branding by his longtime PR puppet master Angus McQueen. In damning detail, Powell exposes the NRA’s plan to “pour gasoline” on the fire in the fight against gun control, to sow discord to fill its coffers, and to secure the presidency for Donald J. Trump.

ABC News’ Pierre Thomas had an exclusive interview with him. It was so earth-shattering that they ran it on Friday on World News Tonight, on Sunday with George Stephanopolous, and again on Monday on GMA.

Powell described himself as a “huge Second Amendment supporter” with a sizable gun collection and a lifelong passion for hunting and shooting. As the NRA’s “No. 2 guy,” he said he “worked side by side” with LaPierre over several years. An NRA spokesperson, in a statement, said that Powell “had zero input or influence on the NRA’s political or legislative strategy,” but Powell says he was involved in “every single important conversation that went on in the NRA.”

But he became disillusioned with the organization and LaPierre’s leadership, he said, as LaPierre’s alleged misuse of members’ money came into focus. Powell says his work became “soul-sucking,” and he now considers it a “low point in [his] life.”

Danny Hakim of the New York Times reported that Powell is now calling for red flag laws and universal background checks.

A hunter since childhood and former Chicago options and derivatives trader, Mr. Powell says that the N.R.A. has fundamentally lost its way, abandoning “its roots as an organization focused on gun safety and education.” That has led it to limit its own long-term membership growth, he argues, by turning its back on the majority of gun owners who support background checks.

With this kind of build up plus dishing all the dirt on Wayne LaPierre and the NRA, you would think the New York Times Review of Books would give it a glowing review just to get Powell’s narrative out there.

And…you would be mistaken.

The review of the book was brutal. It starts off with this:

This is a sad book, and a bad one, and you shouldn’t buy it. The thinking in it is poor; the writing is worse. The author “exposes” evils that, if you’ve been paying even scant attention, you already know. Expect it soon in a Walmart remainder bin near you.

I had always assumed that Powell had a ghostwriter. Given the review of the writing style, I might be mistaken on that. Either that or he had the worst ghostwriter that money could buy.

It gets worse.

The unrelenting barrage of clichés is worse. The N.R.A. has debased the American language, and Powell adds to the sludge. If you only skimmed this book, you would think it was about a fox in a henhouse who caught flak and was thrown under a bus for playing laser-focused hardball like gangbusters and getting the short end of the stick while sensing blood in the water.

It concludes:

Powell’s book is a mea culpa. About the N.R.A.’s Kool-Aid, he writes, “I sold it, stirred it, drank it every day.” He lost his soul, he writes, and became part of the swamp. He’d like, he claims, again unconvincingly, to see the N.R.A. largely return to its roots as an organization dedicated to gun safety.

The N.R.A., in this telling as in others, is an organization in free fall. About New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, who has taken existential aim at the N.R.A., he writes, “I’m not betting against her.”

Bearing in mind that Powell is one of the four named defendants in the suit brought by Letitia James and because he appears to be a sociopath willing to do anything to save his own skin, I’m guessing he has already rolled over and is providing James all the gossip.

You might remember I noted that Powell’s attorney is a partner at Akin Gump. I had wondered how a guy without a job could afford such an expensive attorney. Five years ago the reported partner billing rate for the firm was over $1,200 per hour and undoubtedly is higher now. I might have an explanation for that. A friend who is a DC attorney said that lots of the big DC firms will take cases like this pro bono in exchange for the publicity.

It is either that or perhaps a former big city mayor who hates the NRA enough has decided to foot the bill so that even more dirt about the NRA is released just prior to the election. Nah, that would make me look like a conspiracy theorist or something.

Finally, if you are wondering how such an incompetent grifter ever got hired to a high position at the NRA, my sources say that the blame falls on Pete Brownell and Wayne’s former BFF Tony Makris. Sometime after Powell was elected to the NRA Board of Directors, they pitched him to Wayne as someone for his executive team. The rest is history as the saying goes.

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Brewer Represents NRA But Not LaPierre?

September 1, 2020 by 4 Comments

All the filings for the lawsuit brought by the Attorney General of New York seeking dissolution of the NRA are online. You can see when the individual defendants were served and in what manner.

Both Josh Powell and Wilson “Woody” Phillips had their attorneys file a “stipulation of service” which also granted them time to respond. This was done two weeks ago. Interestingly, they each have hired attorneys with big name firms. Powell’s attorney is Mark MacDougall who is a partner with Akin Gump in DC and was formerly a Federal prosecutor. Likewise, Phillips’ attorney Seth Farber, a partner with Winston Strawn in New York, was also a former Federal prosecutor.

John Frazer was personally served at home in Virginia two weeks ago. The description of the person accepting the service fits that of John Frazer himself.

Here is where it gets interesting. It seems Wayne LaPierre and/or his security guards not only refused service at both the office and his home in Great Falls, Virginia, but is not being represented by Bill Brewer.

Stephen Gutowski of the Free Beacon noticed that in this filing that was done this past Saturday. He posted about it on Twitter earlier this evening. If you double-click on the embedded tweet you can see the filing. Look at paragraph 2.

Regardless of who is or will be Wayne’s attorney, I really don’t think the judge presiding over the case will look too kindly on the petulant manner in which Wayne and his henchmen treated the process server. The other three individual defendants accepted service politely or had their attorneys reach out to accept it.

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Quote Of The Day

August 9, 2020 by 4 Comments

I read a most interesting article by Anthony DeWitt in Richochet. It concerned the suit brought by NY Attorney General Letitia James to dissolve the NRA. It is entitled “Wayne’s World is Crumbling”.

DeWitt, like many of us, is pretty angry the NRA’s future has been put in jeopardy thanks to Wayne LaPierre and his cronies. As he notes, nothing has been proved yet and it is still a list of allegations. Nonetheless, he is feeling used and abused by Wayne and his crowd of grifters and has no problem with James taking them to task.

The meat of the issue which DeWitt points out is just whom is the victim.

If the smoke proves to be from a fire, and the mirrors turn out to be a true reflection of the leadership of the NRA, then I have no quarrel with her taking on LaPierre and his alleged co-conspirators who have allegedly defrauded the membership. I have no quarrel with her investigation demonstrating that the NRA Board of Directors is little more than a bunch of chained and costumed characters in an S&M bondage flick. But let’s remember, they defrauded the membership, not the state of New York, and the membership is not perpetrator, they’re the victim. What the NY AG proposes is, in fact, just shooting everyone.

DeWitt is correct. The victim here are the 5 million members of the NRA whose dues and donations have provided a very nice lifestyle for a bunch of grifters and hanger’s on.

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James Seeks NRA Dissolution

August 6, 2020 by 3 Comments

While there was some speculation earlier today that NY Attorney General Letitia James’ “national announcement” would have to do with President Trump. That was wrong. The original speculation was that it had to do with the NRA was correct.

James has moved to dissolve the NRA in NY Supreme Court for New York County. She has an 18 point, 169 page complaint which includes claims that Wayne LaPierre, Josh Powell, Woody Phillips, and John Frazer have violated their fiduciary duty.

James in her press conference said that she will be forwarding information to the Internal Revenue Service regarding the NRA’s non-profit status. As to freezing assets of both the named individuals and the organization as a whole that is included in the complaint. When asked if she will be seeking criminal charges, James said the investigation is ongoing and any criminal charges will be referred to Manhattan DA Cy Vance Jr. if necessary. James also denied that bringing this dissolution action has anything to do with her personal views on “gun violence” and is only seeking to enforce New York charity law.

James, in her press release, says the resolution she seeks is:

As a result of all the allegations mentioned above, Attorney General James seeks to dissolve the NRA; asks the court to order LaPierre, Phillips, Powell, and Frazer to make full restitution for funds they unlawfully profited and salaries earned while employees; pay penalties; recover illegal and unauthorized payments to the four individuals; remove LaPierre and Frazer from the NRA’s leadership (Phillips and Powell are no longer employed by the NRA); and ensure none of the four individual defendants can ever again serve on the board of a charity in New York.

You can watch the full announcement below. I will be scanning through the court filing in an effort to provide a digest later today.

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Personal Insecurity And NRA Election Rigging

July 25, 2020 by 6 Comments

I have always felt that Wayne LaPierre seemed like an insecure person from the first time I saw him in person. That was at the NRA Annual Meeting in Charlotte in 2010 where he was walking the floor with a team of personal bodyguards. If there was anywhere he should be feel safe, you would think it was there.

While I didn’t realize it then, his personal insecurity goes far deeper in my opinion.

We have watched him force out Ollie North as NRA President and continue to harass him in court. Ollie, a long time board member, didn’t want to be a mere figurehead and that was a threat to Wayne.

We watched him accuse Chris Cox of treason based upon innocuous phone texts. Chris had long been seen as the heir apparent when Wayne retired. It led to Chris resigning instead.

We have watched him use subpoenas as a threat against both board members and outsiders.

We have watched him take private planes and try to have the NRA buy him a mansion in Dallas because he was afraid for his personal safety despite his bodyguards.

We have watched him surround himself with staff whose backgrounds made them utterly dependent upon him for their jobs. I’m talking about his personal assistant who is a prohibited person, his former chief of staff whom most found to be an incompetent, and even a CFO who had embezzled in his prior position.

Despite all of this, I never thought Wayne would have to resort to rigging elections to the Board of Directors to preserve his position.

I was wrong.

The podcast Gangster Capitalism has been running a series about the NRA this year. They thought they had finished Season Two when they got a tip from Dezarae Payne and Michael Schwartz. Both had been active in the NRA Members’ Councils of California. It turns out the Members Councils were not really the grass roots activists fighting for the preservation of gun rights in California. Rather they became a tool to be used by Wayne to assure the election to the board of people supportive of him and keep him in power.

The key to the scheme was Paul Payne who is employed by the NRA as the Liaison to the Executive Vice President. Payne, who is separated from Ms. Payne, was paid by the NRA $80,000 annually, had a $3,000 monthly expense account, had a leased car of his choice, and had a personal assistant who was paid $60,000 a year. Of course, he had benefits on top of this.

From The Trace which picked up the story:

Dezarae Payne told the podcast that every year LaPierre’s office gives Paul Payne the names of NRA board candidates considered allies of the longtime boss of the gun group. Payne then works through the council to lobby NRA members in California to vote for those candidates. Because such a small percentage of members take part in the annual mail ballot election for board seats, Dezarea Payne said, her husband’s electioneering has routinely been critical to victory.

But that wasn’t the whole of it.

Every year, Dezarea Payne said, her husband solicits volunteers who are flown to the convention to encourage members to back LaPierre’s favored candidate for the one-year term. These volunteers are given free concert and event tickets at the convention, and treated to a lavish dinner with LaPierre and his key aides. Payne said the trip costs the NRA $35,000 to $45,000 and has been a clandestine affair. “You have to be completely loyal to Wayne,” she said of the volunteers, who typically number up to a dozen. “You can’t question what they are doing, you have to be secretive, you can’t tell people what you are doing, who you work for.”

I saw this in action at the 2018 Annual Meeting in Dallas. Liston Matthews of the Good Hill Press Blog and I stayed at the Fairfield Inn in the Cockrell Hill section of town. There were a number of people there from the Members’ Council of California and they were talking up Herb Lankford for 76th Director. However, we were supporting Adam Kraut in his second attempt at the board. If you walked on the floor of the expo center, you saw support for Adam everywhere. Nonetheless, Mr. Lankford was elected. Not to dismiss Mr. Lankford but I wondered why a bunch of guys from California were so up on someone from Columbia, South Carolina. It didn’t make sense then but it does now.

You really need to listen to the podcast. You have to hear it in the words of Ms. Payne and Mr. Schwartz. Merely reading it does not have the same impact.

Wayne’s personal insecurity reminds me a lot of Richard Nixon in 1972. They both directly or indirectly resorted to stuff to assure their position when it wasn’t needed. There was no way that Richard Nixon was going to lose to George McGovern but Watergate still happened. As to the NRA, the bylaws make it virtually impossible to oust Wayne.

What happens now is anybody’s guess. The Board could demand Wayne’s retirement or resignation but I somehow doubt that will happen. The Attorney General of New York will probably add this to her list of things to investigate. The one thing that is sure is that just when we face a critical election for gun rights, Wayne’s attention – and the NRA’s by extension – will be elsewhere.

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“Will No One Rid Me Of This Meddlesome Priest?”

June 22, 2020 by 1 Comment

The quote in the title is attributed to King Henry II of England with reference to his dispute with Thomas a’Becket who was the Archbishop of Canterbury. In response, four Norman knights traveled from Normandy to Canterbury, confronted Thomas, and ultimately killed him. The murder in 1170 was later made into plays by T. S. Eliot and Jean Anouilh as well as a movie with Richard Burton.

This is not meant to be a history or literature lesson. Rather a lawsuit by the NRA against Oliver North in NY Supreme Court, County of Albany made me think of that quote.

I could almost hear Wayne LaPierre saying, “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome president.” To which, William Brewer III replied, “I will, my liege!”

The complaint, much of which is redacted, seeks to have Oliver North removed from the NRA Board of Directors. According to a footnote, they redacted much of the complaint because it might contain information that Col. North might argue should be kept under seal.

The complaint alleges that Col. North has an “irreconcilable conflict” due to his employment with Ackerman McQueen and his membership on the Board of Directors. The Audit Committee, which had approved the arrangement, later rescinded their approval in May 2019 after the conflict between Wayne LaPierre and Col. North had come to a head.

The NRA is seeking a declaration that Col. North’s refusal to terminate his employment with Ackerman McQueen “was an election by him to terminate his NRA Board membership.” Here is where I might note that Col. North was the leading vote-getter in the 2019 NRA Board of Director election.

The attorneys bringing he lawsuit on behalf are Svetlana Eisenberg and William Brewer III of Brewer, Attorneys and Counselors.

When Pete Brownell resigned as President of the NRA in 2018, a great effort was made to get Col. North to be President. At the time, he was under contract to Fox News and would have to resign that in order to become NRA President. I have been told by multiple insiders as well as have seen in court filings that Wayne LaPierre actually negotiated Col. North’s contract with Ackerman McQueen. The whole “they won’t give us the contract” so we can know what conflicts Ollie has is a charade as is the declaration by the Audit Committee.

In reality, the conflict is between Wayne LaPierre, his cronies on the Board, and his attorney who is sucking the NRA dry and those who wanted to return the NRA to effectiveness and to see Brewer gone.

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The NRA’s Lack Of A Succession Plan

May 7, 2020 by 6 Comments

Healthy organizations have succession plans. Good leaders make it a priority. Development of future leaders is such an organizational imperative that it is usually under the purview of the CEO. Having a succession plan is both forward looking and a measure of risk management.

Think how many corporations and non-profits have lost their chief executives to heart attacks, cancer, and accidents. The list goes on and on.

This has been at the back of my mind regarding the NRA for a long time now. What brought it to the forefront was a post by Jeff Knox on the lack of new leadership options for the NRA and its cloudy future.

For almost a decade I’ve been asking people in the firearms and Second Amendment community to seriously consider who might take over as Executive Vice President of the NRA if Wayne LaPierre were to retire or be hit by a bus.

About 6 years ago I got really serious about that question and was raising the issue in my regular columns, then 3 and a half years ago, after the election of Donald Trump, there was talk that Wayne might be offered some sort of position within the Trump administration, and I was very actively asking people for suggestions of possible successors, or at least the qualities a successor would need in order to be successful and keep the NRA strong. Finally, last year all sorts of accusations of financial improprieties and self-dealing among LaPierre and other NRA executives, broke in major media, and a lot of people began asking the same questions I’d been asking for years, but the same answer kept coming back… Crickets.

Let’s look at the people that Jeff notes have been seriously mentioned as potential successors as Executive VP and CEO of the NRA.

Chris Cox.

Out. Through the machinations of either Wayne LaPierre or his erstwhile Rasputin, William Brewer III, Chris was labeled as having been a part of a “coup attempt”. This was always strongly denied by Chris and he eventually resigned.

Ollie North.

Out. Again, was accused of plotting to overthrow Wayne and again the fine hand of William Brewer III seems to have been involved. This happened after Ollie started asking too many questions especially with regard to Brewer. Wayne portrayed this as “extortion“.

Kyle Weaver.

Out. Weaver was the Executive Director of General Operations who got replaced by Josh Powell. He is now the President and CEO of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Weaver had spent 18 years with the NRA in positions of ever increasing responsibility. The RMEF gets a 4 star rating from the Charity Navigator which is the highest possible. By contrast, the NRA is under a “concern advisory” from them.

If you need an example of a corporation that had good succession planning, look at General Electric. It has been the focus of many case studies on how to do succession planning. Jack Welch who served as CEO of GE for 20 years was known for grooming potential successors. He did such a good job that those who lost out on succeeding him at GE where snapped up by other companies.

It isn’t just the CEO who should be responsible for succession planning. Professor Ram Charan who taught at both Harvard Business School and Northwestern University, had this to say on succession planning.

A CEO or board that has been in place for six or seven years and has not yet provided a pool of qualified candidates, and a robust process for selecting the next leader, is a failure. Everyone talks about emulating such best practitioners as General Electric, but few work very hard at it.

By all objective measures, the NRA Board of Directors has failed. They have no succession plan for Wayne. The majority of the board has kow-towed to Wayne and jumped when he said jump.

Part of the reason the board fails is structural and part is due to the composition. The structural issue is that the Board of Directors is too damn large to be effective. The other issue is that many on the board are there due to either celebrity status or allegiance to Wayne. It is the latter that is the greater problem. The board owes a duty of loyalty to the organization and not to any one individual.

In the short run, nothing can be done about the size of the board. However, the board can still start to work on a succession plan to Wayne. Based upon Wayne’s age of 70 alone, this needs to be done. My fear is that the board will do as it has always done. That is do nothing and the organization will continue to suffer while our blood enemies grow stronger.